Chicken fingers and Joy

Chicken fingers. Yummy! Especially with gravy! Monday night, we went to the good ol’ Dairy Queen in our small town, and ordered the kids’ favorite….the chicken finger basket. You know, the one that comes with a Styrofoam cup of gravy, big Texas toast, french fries, and chicken fingers….all tucked in that nice box.

Thankfully since the kids are still little, the kids and I can all share just one of those boxes and be just fine! So, I divvied out everyone’s chicken and fries, and split the toast between all 4 kids, lastly dumping some gravy in each person’s tray. Somehow, the 2 year old ended up with the gravy cup! As we were sitting there, I started watching her with this gravy. She first dipped her pinky in it, then went 2 fingers, and soon her whole little fist was in the gravy. Once I showed her that she can dip her chicken in there, she got a big smile, grabbed up that chicken finger and dipped it about half way in.

Then, the funniest thing happened, after she dipped her chicken, she took a bite, but she didn’t even eat the side of the chicken that she had dipped!! She ate from the other side and held the part that was covered in gravy in her gravy covered hands.

When I watched this, I thought about our focus of JOY. Why? Because we often miss joy in our lives because we eat from the wrong end of the chicken. We have joyful situations all around us, but we either choose not to see them or we don’t know how to get away from negative situations that pull us down. For me, this was getting rid of some things in my life that weren’t bringing joy to my heart. For me, it was slowing down a learning to look for joy and engage in that area of my life. Because if you are like me, you often see those negative things in your life, and you focus your attention there. In other words, we eat the end of the chicken that wasn’t even dipped in the gravy!! While just at the other end of the chicken strip is a yummy bite of joy waiting for us to enjoy.

As silly as this all may sound – let’s all think about ways in our life that we can engage in the joy that is already around us. Maybe that is our family, some good friends, a positive situation at work, or anything that produces joy in our lives…and focus in THERE…on the JOY..not the negativity.

The less we will focus on the bad things in our lives, the less they will consume us. Let’s all work to focus UP on the positive, focus UP on Him, focus UP on what He has placed in our lives today….and the chicken with gravy will always taste better than plain chicken!! Go dip that chicken and enjoy!